Why Is My Chrome Tab Indicator a Smiley Face?

Google offers plenty of Easter eggs to try in your free time. However, unlike most Easter eggs, where you need to search for a specific keyword or visit a website to access them, there’s one hidden Easter egg that activates when you use the Chrome browser a lot on your smartphone.

While browsing the internet, I have a habit of opening new tabs to search for something new instead of using the ones I already have open. I never realized how many tabs I had opened in my Chrome mobile browser until today, when I opened a new tab and suddenly noticed that the tab counter started showing a smiley face instead of a number.

It turns out that Google Chrome on mobile displays a smiley face when you have over 100 tabs open in the browser. Although there’s no official confirmation, it seems the developers didn’t want to increase the size of the tab count box to display three digits. This might be because having over 100 tabs open in a mobile browser already puts a lot of strain on the browser, so the developers might be trying to reduce some of the load by preventing Chrome from showing the exact tab number and instead displaying a simple smiley face once you hit the three-digit mark.

The fun part is that the smiley face on Chrome for Android and iOS is slightly different. On Android, there's a laughing face; on iOS, there's a smiley face.

Additionally, you'll also notice a difference between iOS and Android when you have more than 100 incognito tabs open in Chrome. On iOS, you'll see the same smiley face when you open over 100 incognito tabs. But on Android, you'll see a winking face instead. Perhaps this is Google's way of subtly judging what you might be searching for in your incognito tabs.

Unlike before, when Google used to release new Easter eggs regularly, it has now almost stopped doing so. However, there are still plenty of Easter eggs you should try at least once. Some are inspired by your favorite movies and TV shows, and they're definitely worth checking out.